August 15, 2022 • 17 mins
World-class hurdler Devon Allen's track season ended with a controversial call at the World Championships in Eugene. Now, the 27-year-old is trying to make a name for himself at Eagles training camp as roster cuts loom. Producer Jess Yarmosky checked in with NBC Sports Philadelphia's Reuben Frank and performance coach Steve Magness about how Allen's prowess on the track may make him indomitable in Philly...or not.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we get started, please rate and review our show
that helps people find us. On this episode of Sports
Illustrated Weekly. With NFL preseason upon us and roster cuts looming,
a lot of players out there are hoping to prove
themselves right now and stick with their team, including an
undrafted rookie with the Philadelphia Eagles. Before going to camp
(00:23):
in Philly, that had been six years since Stephen Allen
played football. He's best known for what he's done on
the track, where he's a world class hurdler who also
recently suffered an unfortunate and controversial outcome at the World
Championships in Oregon. Our producer Jessica Armoski has the story
of Alan trying to turn himself into a two sports star.
(00:44):
I'm your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I
Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. Alright, Just so,
training camps are happening, one of them near and dear
to my heart. The Philadelphia Eagles are at camp and
they have a player there who I find very interesting,
Devin Allen. He's in camp with the Eagles. How's it
(01:06):
going for him so far? Considering he's playing football at
a high level. For the first time since. I think
it's going pretty well if you asked him, maybe not
as well as he would have hoped. I spoke to
Reuben Frank from NBC Sports Philadelphia. He was talking to
Devon pretty early on in training camp, and Devin Allen said, yeah,
(01:29):
it's intense, all right. I think it's just learning how
to practice again. Um, learning how to play again. I think,
you know, the nuances are most of him in college,
and then it's been so long since I've played, right,
I just gotta remember, you know that the intensity and
the tempo that all the coaches want and practice and
then how to practice and you know, get a good
rep even if we're just in outlets or we're just
in shells and stuff like that as well. Um, and
(01:51):
then also getting all the walk through reps I can.
I think the most frustrating thing for Devon Allen at
this point is he's leaving a sport for now where
he is incredibly six tessful, really highly decorated, just known
as you know, one of the best at what he does,
and then he gets through training camp and he's pretty
much like ninth in the pecking order. He hasn't been
getting a lot of opportunities to show off his skills
(02:14):
at camp. Here's what Ruben had to say. So, not
only is he competing against wide receivers who've been doing
this all their lives without a six year break, he's
playing against cornerbacks who are some of the best in
the world and know every trick in the book. And
pure speed doesn't get you open in the NFL, and
(02:35):
I think that he is just kind of struggling to
stand out um, which must be frustrating, especially because he,
you know, really is coming off a sport where he
is so well known. So it's wild to me that
he hasn't played football in six years. He's undrafted. He
shows up to the Oregon Pro Day, the Eagles take
a liking to him aside. Is it just the speed?
(02:56):
What did they see that they wanted to bring him
into camp? Yeah, so we know that he's fast, obviously,
and you know, the Eagles general manager Howie Roseman, he's
kind of thinking outside the box always when he's looking
for people to sign. Reuben Frank reminded us of Jordan Malatta,
the rugby player that Howie Roseman signed, you know, back
(03:17):
in two thousand six. He signed an Olympic skier still
the only Olympic skier to ever be signed by the
NFL Jeremy Bloom. So you can imagine that Roseman was
looking at Alan kind of through that lens as someone
who maybe isn't necessarily a shoe in, but could bring
a lot to the team. They did look at film,
Ruben told me, and you know, it was old film.
(03:38):
It was from like two thousand fourteen, two thousand sixteen,
which I kind of thought was funny, and they were impressed.
You know, you think of a track guy playing football,
You think of like a fragile, you know, a finesse
type player with great speed. But they saw a guy
who didn't back down physically from from defensive backs and
and had to write mentality, he didn't look like a
(04:00):
track star playing football. It looked like a football player,
and I think that's what appealed to them, all right,
So they go from a skier to a rugby player,
and now they've got Devin Allen, who, as we know,
is excellent on the track. He's a three time national
champion in the one ten hurdles. The timing here really
works out for Allen, right, because he signs in April.
He's got the U S Championships in June, He's got
the World Championships in July, and now he's in camp
(04:21):
with the Eagles in August. He's got a lot going
on for Devin Allen. The timing is everything and it
has worked so well in his favor. He went to
the US Champs in June, he took third place. The
top three went to Worlds. It actually came out after
the race that his dad had passed away the weekend
of the meet. So he's basically running with this huge
(04:45):
life thing happening and really hard to tell in the race.
He still, you know, got third, he qualifies for Worlds,
and Yeah, he seemed to be just on the up
and up. With the World Champs in July and Eugene,
his home stadium, he looked good to contend for a medal.
I think a lot of fans were expecting him to
come out and get on the podium. And then, you know,
(05:07):
his plan was transitioned back to football for the time being.
See what he could do when he dipped his toes
into the NFL. He was really set up for a
successful transition. Yeah, I was excited for him at the
World Championships. As you mentioned, it's his home track in Eugene, Oregon,
first time the World Championships had been held in the
United States, and so everybody, I think, kind of expected
(05:29):
him to end up on the podium. But man, it
did not go well for him. Tell everybody what happened
to Devon Allen at the World Championships in Oregon. It
did not go well for him. That's I mean, exactly
as you said. He got through the heats and the semis.
There was a sense that he didn't quite look like
himself in those early rounds, but the finals all that matters.
(05:50):
He gets the line in the final, and I wouldn't
say that he was a heavy favorite for gold necessarily,
but you know, this guy really delivers when it matters,
is um and I think a podium finish was in
sight for him. The gun goes up, say the gun
(06:13):
goes off again, calling the runners back to the line.
A callback gun is jarring obviously for athletes, jarring for fans,
for people watching in the stadium, for the watching on TV.
It's just it's kind of this like eerie feeling. You
know that something bad is coming. You're scanning the line
for who it could have been. It's late three I
think now. I've seen a lot of false starts, and
(06:38):
usually if they're pretty late, you can see them with
the naked eye. Then if you can't see it in
real time, you go back and you look at the
slow mo. This false start was absolutely imperceptible. Even in
slow motion. What we saw was that the gun went
off and he got out of the blocks. It was
incredibly hard to understand end what had just happened, even
(07:01):
when he watched the footage and come to find out
why is that pete fall started by a second he
appeared to be trying to talk to the official at
the track, uh be trying to reason with him. The
start went to replay, and there was this thought, Okay,
maybe he'll run anyway, he'll file a protest later. But
(07:22):
after a few minutes and the crowd did not like this,
he walked off the track. His world championships were over.
Everyone was doing it was a really really intense moment. Yeah,
that's such a bummer. I mean like I was. I
was bummed out for him. A second chest sounds impossible.
It sounds like this couldn't possibly be something that they
(07:42):
could measure but apparently they did. That had to be
immensely frustrating for him. No, so frustrating. And it's even
more frustrating when you kind of dig into this rule
and if it seems arbitrary, that's because it is, I
think we can say. So. The idea is you want
to have a fast time between when you hear the
(08:03):
gun and when you actually push out of the blocks,
but not too fast because if it's too fast, then
there's a chance that you ignored the gun and just
went early, and that could impact obviously your race unfairly.
So I was like, this rule makes no sense. Where
did it come from? Why does it exist? And I
ended up speaking to Steve Magnus, who's an expert on
(08:23):
health and human performance. He's coached a lot of pro
athletes over the years, and come to find out this
rule was actually developed in the sixties when timing mechanisms
were not the same as they are now, and it
wasn't until the mid nineties when World Athletics, which is
the international governing body for track and field, said yep,
this is the official standard. Here's Steve. And to back
(08:46):
that up, they had a study that only had eight
amateur finish sprinters in it that said, up, no one
reacted faster than than point one. Oh, so this is
this is the new standard. So the fact that this
rule was codified into existence based on a study with
eight amateur sprinters, and now suddenly pro runners around the
(09:10):
world are being held to it, obviously, you can see
why it's pretty frustrating. Devon Allen was the third pretty
big name DQ in this meet. A lot of people
started digging into the starting data and the timing data
in Eugene specifically. Yeah, so if you look at the
data um and compare it to past World championships across
(09:30):
spread events, they're all reacting a hundred. They're too faster
than they normally would. So the average, the median is
all faster reactions. In fact, I was looking the other
day and normally we only have, you know, maybe a
handful of reaction times that are really close to that
point one response, and in this track meet we've had
(09:53):
something like thirty. Now for their part, World Athletics came
out and was like, look, everything's okay with the timing,
but we'll look at the rule in the future. We'll
take it into consideration in the future. Now a lot
of people saw that as them conceding to maybe this
rule isn't fair, maybe we should revisit it. But that
(10:14):
didn't change a lot for Devon Allen. The race had
already been one, the medals had been awarded, and there
was this really somber shot of Devon watching the race
from the call room, just sitting on like a folding
chair watching the race. And it was pretty heartbreaking to
know that because of this rule, because he was a
really good starter, but a little bit too good on
(10:36):
this day, he was out of contention for a medal.
That's insane, Jess. I mean, you call it heartbreaking. I
think that's exactly right. If that had been me, I
would never get over it. I would think about it
for the rest of my life. And Devon Allen, now
he's a Eagles training camp and he's a little bit
removed from it, but he's never going to be clear
of what happened in Eugene, and he's still being asked
(10:58):
about it even at Eagles camp. Right, What did he
have to say about what happened at the World Championships. Yeah,
he spoke to Reuben Frank at training camp and he
said when he heard the callback On. Obviously, his first
feeling was panic. I know the rules, right, you can't.
You're not supposed to be able to run into protests
unless there's a problem with the equipment or something you know,
outside the external to start, like crowd noise or somebody
(11:21):
making noise on the field or you know, pull volt
or shopping or throwing whatever like that. Um, so you
know it's pretty much just panic right away. But the
thing is is, because of the timing, he didn't really
have a chance to let it get to him so much.
He didn't have a chance to stew over it. He
had to report for camp and his focus had to
change no matter what had happened at the meat. So
(11:44):
there's this sense that Devin Allen is an incredible hurdler.
We know this, you know, Reuben and I were chatting
about how Devon Allen could roll out of bed in
the middle of the night and run in the low
thirteen for the one ten hurdles, just to give you
an idea. The world record is currently twelve eight, so
that's really fast. And there's this idea that you know,
(12:05):
not that hurtling comes easy to him, but she's really
good at it. He kind of sails through it. He
does really well and he wanted a new challenge and
that is why he showed up at Eagles training camp
ready to go and ready to see what he could
do in a completely different kind of way. All Right,
so he's in camp with the Eagles. I'm rooting for him.
I want something good to happen for Devon Allen, especially
(12:28):
after what happened at the World Championships. Just but as
we know, this is kind of a long shot. He's undrafted,
he hasn't played football in six seasons. But the good
news is the Eagles wide receivers after A. J. Brown
and DeVante Smith are not great, so he has a chance.
What are his prospects looking like? What are the guys
who you talked to in Phillys saying about Devon Allen? Yeah?
I got the sense in talking to people about this
(12:50):
that it's unlikely that a permanent roster spot will become
Devan Allen's, but it's not impossible. Ruben Frank thinks that
there is a potential that he could get a spot
on the practice squad. Still pretty lucrative and because of
these new rules under COVID, teams can pull up as
we know two players each game from the practice squad,
(13:12):
so he has the potential to be called up and
get a couple of game checks, which pretty good deal
for Devon Allen. The other thing is, again, timing is
so working out for him. Football wraps up in February,
indoor track really starts ramping up in February, and you
can bet that you're going to see him back on
the track. He's not done with track. He wants to
(13:34):
obviously keep going, but in terms of doing both sports,
timing is really on his side. It would be great
to see him back on the track. I'm glad that
he's not abandoning that sport for football. Practice squad probably
is the best case scenario for him. So fingers crossed
on that one. As we know, a preseason is underway.
The Eagles just played the Jets in their first preseason game.
(13:57):
How did Devin Allen do tell me he had a
great game on I was really hoping that I would
have an amazing story for you, an amazing answer to
this question. Devon Allen played the best game of his life.
He stood out, all eyes were on him. That didn't happen.
I think the game was decent for Devon Allen. He
(14:18):
only played eight snaps on offense and seven on special teams,
not a ton of playing time if you're looking at
that as an indicator of his future with the Eagles.
It wasn't a game where he stood out that much.
But at the same time, you know, he was out
there in an Eagles uniform playing, and I think we
just have to wait and see what happens with these
roster cuts. I'm interested in this story just because it
(14:41):
has so many layers. I'm interested in it because he's,
you know, a track superstar who's trying his hand in
football again. So just from a journalism standpoint, I'm fascinated.
And then also it's got that hometown flavor for me.
But are Eagles fans also curious about Devon Allen? What
do they think of them? That's what I wanted to know.
I asked Ruben, if you know Devin Allen was welcome
(15:03):
to Philly with open arms by those fans. Never happened before?
He said, not quite. Um, you know, the Eagles have
a wide receiver at camp who is turning a lot
of heads. Britain Covey from Utah really interesting story, and
Ruben told me that his star is potentially starting to
(15:23):
shine a little bit brighter than Devin Allen is getting
a little bit more attention. I will say that in
the preseason game against the Jets, Brittain Covey reportedly tore
some ligaments in his hand. He may or may not
be out for some time because of that. Could this
be a chance for Devin Allen's star to rise? The
answer to that right now is we'll see. Maybe we
(15:47):
don't know. But for me as a track fan, sure
he may not be the talk of the town in Philly,
but I'm excited to watch him play. I want to see,
you know, how this translates over to the NFL, and
I'm going to definitely keep watching Alright, just this was great.
I am rooting for Devon Allen. I hope it works
out for him in a way that it didn't work
out for him at the World Championships. Excellent reporting by you.
Thanks for this, Yeah, thanks for having me on special
(16:13):
Thanks to Ruben Frank and Dave zan Garrow from NBC
Sports Philly for passing along Devon Allen's interview audio from
Eagles training camp. Thanks for listening, and a reminder to
please rate and review the show that helps people find us.
Sports Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and
I Heeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
(16:36):
you get your favorite shows. This episode of Sports Illustrated
Weekly was produced by Jordan Rizzieri, Jessica Armoski, and Isaac Lee,
who was also our sound engineer. Our senior producers are
Dan Bloom and Harry sward Out. Our executive producers are
Scott Rody and me John Gonzalez. Our theme song is
by Nolan Schneider and if you've stuck around this long,
(16:57):
we leave you with this. Yeah. Milrose when it was
at the Garden was the greatest. When I started going
to mill Rose, I mean everybody guys were smoking, like
this cloud of cigarettes smoke, and like you know, Rick
Walhooter's out there running like three fifty seven. It was unbelievable.
Before we get started, please rate and review our show
that helps people find us. On this episode of Sports
Illustrated Weekly. With NFL preseason upon us and roster cuts looming,
a lot of players out there are hoping to prove
themselves right now and stick with their team, including an
undrafted rookie with the Philadelphia Eagles. Before going to camp
(00:23):
in Philly, that had been six years since Stephen Allen
played football. He's best known for what he's done on
the track, where he's a world class hurdler who also
recently suffered an unfortunate and controversial outcome at the World
Championships in Oregon. Our producer Jessica Armoski has the story
of Alan trying to turn himself into a two sports star.
(00:44):
I'm your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I
Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. Alright, Just so,
training camps are happening, one of them near and dear
to my heart. The Philadelphia Eagles are at camp and
they have a player there who I find very interesting,
Devin Allen. He's in camp with the Eagles. How's it
(01:06):
going for him so far? Considering he's playing football at
a high level. For the first time since. I think
it's going pretty well if you asked him, maybe not
as well as he would have hoped. I spoke to
Reuben Frank from NBC Sports Philadelphia. He was talking to
Devon pretty early on in training camp, and Devin Allen said, yeah,
(01:29):
it's intense, all right. I think it's just learning how
to practice again. Um, learning how to play again. I think,
you know, the nuances are most of him in college,
and then it's been so long since I've played, right,
I just gotta remember, you know that the intensity and
the tempo that all the coaches want and practice and
then how to practice and you know, get a good
rep even if we're just in outlets or we're just
in shells and stuff like that as well. Um, and
(01:51):
then also getting all the walk through reps I can.
I think the most frustrating thing for Devon Allen at
this point is he's leaving a sport for now where
he is incredibly six tessful, really highly decorated, just known
as you know, one of the best at what he does,
and then he gets through training camp and he's pretty
much like ninth in the pecking order. He hasn't been
getting a lot of opportunities to show off his skills
(02:14):
at camp. Here's what Ruben had to say. So, not
only is he competing against wide receivers who've been doing
this all their lives without a six year break, he's
playing against cornerbacks who are some of the best in
the world and know every trick in the book. And
pure speed doesn't get you open in the NFL, and
(02:35):
I think that he is just kind of struggling to
stand out um, which must be frustrating, especially because he,
you know, really is coming off a sport where he
is so well known. So it's wild to me that
he hasn't played football in six years. He's undrafted. He
shows up to the Oregon Pro Day, the Eagles take
a liking to him aside. Is it just the speed?
(02:56):
What did they see that they wanted to bring him
into camp? Yeah, so we know that he's fast, obviously,
and you know, the Eagles general manager Howie Roseman, he's
kind of thinking outside the box always when he's looking
for people to sign. Reuben Frank reminded us of Jordan Malatta,
the rugby player that Howie Roseman signed, you know, back
(03:17):
in two thousand six. He signed an Olympic skier still
the only Olympic skier to ever be signed by the
NFL Jeremy Bloom. So you can imagine that Roseman was
looking at Alan kind of through that lens as someone
who maybe isn't necessarily a shoe in, but could bring
a lot to the team. They did look at film,
Ruben told me, and you know, it was old film.
(03:38):
It was from like two thousand fourteen, two thousand sixteen,
which I kind of thought was funny, and they were impressed.
You know, you think of a track guy playing football,
You think of like a fragile, you know, a finesse
type player with great speed. But they saw a guy
who didn't back down physically from from defensive backs and
and had to write mentality, he didn't look like a
(04:00):
track star playing football. It looked like a football player,
and I think that's what appealed to them, all right,
So they go from a skier to a rugby player,
and now they've got Devin Allen, who, as we know,
is excellent on the track. He's a three time national
champion in the one ten hurdles. The timing here really
works out for Allen, right, because he signs in April.
He's got the U S Championships in June, He's got
the World Championships in July, and now he's in camp
(04:21):
with the Eagles in August. He's got a lot going
on for Devin Allen. The timing is everything and it
has worked so well in his favor. He went to
the US Champs in June, he took third place. The
top three went to Worlds. It actually came out after
the race that his dad had passed away the weekend
of the meet. So he's basically running with this huge
(04:45):
life thing happening and really hard to tell in the race.
He still, you know, got third, he qualifies for Worlds,
and Yeah, he seemed to be just on the up
and up. With the World Champs in July and Eugene,
his home stadium, he looked good to contend for a medal.
I think a lot of fans were expecting him to
come out and get on the podium. And then, you know,
(05:07):
his plan was transitioned back to football for the time being.
See what he could do when he dipped his toes
into the NFL. He was really set up for a
successful transition. Yeah, I was excited for him at the
World Championships. As you mentioned, it's his home track in Eugene, Oregon,
first time the World Championships had been held in the
United States, and so everybody, I think, kind of expected
(05:29):
him to end up on the podium. But man, it
did not go well for him. Tell everybody what happened
to Devon Allen at the World Championships in Oregon. It
did not go well for him. That's I mean, exactly
as you said. He got through the heats and the semis.
There was a sense that he didn't quite look like
himself in those early rounds, but the finals all that matters.
(05:50):
He gets the line in the final, and I wouldn't
say that he was a heavy favorite for gold necessarily,
but you know, this guy really delivers when it matters,
is um and I think a podium finish was in
sight for him. The gun goes up, say the gun
(06:13):
goes off again, calling the runners back to the line.
A callback gun is jarring obviously for athletes, jarring for fans,
for people watching in the stadium, for the watching on TV.
It's just it's kind of this like eerie feeling. You
know that something bad is coming. You're scanning the line
for who it could have been. It's late three I
think now. I've seen a lot of false starts, and
(06:38):
usually if they're pretty late, you can see them with
the naked eye. Then if you can't see it in
real time, you go back and you look at the
slow mo. This false start was absolutely imperceptible. Even in
slow motion. What we saw was that the gun went
off and he got out of the blocks. It was
incredibly hard to understand end what had just happened, even
(07:01):
when he watched the footage and come to find out
why is that pete fall started by a second he
appeared to be trying to talk to the official at
the track, uh be trying to reason with him. The
start went to replay, and there was this thought, Okay,
maybe he'll run anyway, he'll file a protest later. But
(07:22):
after a few minutes and the crowd did not like this,
he walked off the track. His world championships were over.
Everyone was doing it was a really really intense moment. Yeah,
that's such a bummer. I mean like I was. I
was bummed out for him. A second chest sounds impossible.
It sounds like this couldn't possibly be something that they
(07:42):
could measure but apparently they did. That had to be
immensely frustrating for him. No, so frustrating. And it's even
more frustrating when you kind of dig into this rule
and if it seems arbitrary, that's because it is, I
think we can say. So. The idea is you want
to have a fast time between when you hear the
(08:03):
gun and when you actually push out of the blocks,
but not too fast because if it's too fast, then
there's a chance that you ignored the gun and just
went early, and that could impact obviously your race unfairly.
So I was like, this rule makes no sense. Where
did it come from? Why does it exist? And I
ended up speaking to Steve Magnus, who's an expert on
(08:23):
health and human performance. He's coached a lot of pro
athletes over the years, and come to find out this
rule was actually developed in the sixties when timing mechanisms
were not the same as they are now, and it
wasn't until the mid nineties when World Athletics, which is
the international governing body for track and field, said yep,
this is the official standard. Here's Steve. And to back
(08:46):
that up, they had a study that only had eight
amateur finish sprinters in it that said, up, no one
reacted faster than than point one. Oh, so this is
this is the new standard. So the fact that this
rule was codified into existence based on a study with
eight amateur sprinters, and now suddenly pro runners around the
(09:10):
world are being held to it, obviously, you can see
why it's pretty frustrating. Devon Allen was the third pretty
big name DQ in this meet. A lot of people
started digging into the starting data and the timing data
in Eugene specifically. Yeah, so if you look at the
data um and compare it to past World championships across
(09:30):
spread events, they're all reacting a hundred. They're too faster
than they normally would. So the average, the median is
all faster reactions. In fact, I was looking the other
day and normally we only have, you know, maybe a
handful of reaction times that are really close to that
point one response, and in this track meet we've had
(09:53):
something like thirty. Now for their part, World Athletics came
out and was like, look, everything's okay with the timing,
but we'll look at the rule in the future. We'll
take it into consideration in the future. Now a lot
of people saw that as them conceding to maybe this
rule isn't fair, maybe we should revisit it. But that
(10:14):
didn't change a lot for Devon Allen. The race had
already been one, the medals had been awarded, and there
was this really somber shot of Devon watching the race
from the call room, just sitting on like a folding
chair watching the race. And it was pretty heartbreaking to
know that because of this rule, because he was a
really good starter, but a little bit too good on
(10:36):
this day, he was out of contention for a medal.
That's insane, Jess. I mean, you call it heartbreaking. I
think that's exactly right. If that had been me, I
would never get over it. I would think about it
for the rest of my life. And Devon Allen, now
he's a Eagles training camp and he's a little bit
removed from it, but he's never going to be clear
of what happened in Eugene, and he's still being asked
(10:58):
about it even at Eagles camp. Right, What did he
have to say about what happened at the World Championships. Yeah,
he spoke to Reuben Frank at training camp and he
said when he heard the callback On. Obviously, his first
feeling was panic. I know the rules, right, you can't.
You're not supposed to be able to run into protests
unless there's a problem with the equipment or something you know,
outside the external to start, like crowd noise or somebody
(11:21):
making noise on the field or you know, pull volt
or shopping or throwing whatever like that. Um, so you
know it's pretty much just panic right away. But the
thing is is, because of the timing, he didn't really
have a chance to let it get to him so much.
He didn't have a chance to stew over it. He
had to report for camp and his focus had to
change no matter what had happened at the meat. So
(11:44):
there's this sense that Devin Allen is an incredible hurdler.
We know this, you know, Reuben and I were chatting
about how Devon Allen could roll out of bed in
the middle of the night and run in the low
thirteen for the one ten hurdles, just to give you
an idea. The world record is currently twelve eight, so
that's really fast. And there's this idea that you know,
(12:05):
not that hurtling comes easy to him, but she's really
good at it. He kind of sails through it. He
does really well and he wanted a new challenge and
that is why he showed up at Eagles training camp
ready to go and ready to see what he could
do in a completely different kind of way. All Right,
so he's in camp with the Eagles. I'm rooting for him.
I want something good to happen for Devon Allen, especially
(12:28):
after what happened at the World Championships. Just but as
we know, this is kind of a long shot. He's undrafted,
he hasn't played football in six seasons. But the good
news is the Eagles wide receivers after A. J. Brown
and DeVante Smith are not great, so he has a chance.
What are his prospects looking like? What are the guys
who you talked to in Phillys saying about Devon Allen? Yeah?
I got the sense in talking to people about this
(12:50):
that it's unlikely that a permanent roster spot will become
Devan Allen's, but it's not impossible. Ruben Frank thinks that
there is a potential that he could get a spot
on the practice squad. Still pretty lucrative and because of
these new rules under COVID, teams can pull up as
we know two players each game from the practice squad,
(13:12):
so he has the potential to be called up and
get a couple of game checks, which pretty good deal
for Devon Allen. The other thing is, again, timing is
so working out for him. Football wraps up in February,
indoor track really starts ramping up in February, and you
can bet that you're going to see him back on
the track. He's not done with track. He wants to
(13:34):
obviously keep going, but in terms of doing both sports,
timing is really on his side. It would be great
to see him back on the track. I'm glad that
he's not abandoning that sport for football. Practice squad probably
is the best case scenario for him. So fingers crossed
on that one. As we know, a preseason is underway.
The Eagles just played the Jets in their first preseason game.
(13:57):
How did Devin Allen do tell me he had a
great game on I was really hoping that I would
have an amazing story for you, an amazing answer to
this question. Devon Allen played the best game of his life.
He stood out, all eyes were on him. That didn't happen.
I think the game was decent for Devon Allen. He
(14:18):
only played eight snaps on offense and seven on special teams,
not a ton of playing time if you're looking at
that as an indicator of his future with the Eagles.
It wasn't a game where he stood out that much.
But at the same time, you know, he was out
there in an Eagles uniform playing, and I think we
just have to wait and see what happens with these
roster cuts. I'm interested in this story just because it
(14:41):
has so many layers. I'm interested in it because he's,
you know, a track superstar who's trying his hand in
football again. So just from a journalism standpoint, I'm fascinated.
And then also it's got that hometown flavor for me.
But are Eagles fans also curious about Devon Allen? What
do they think of them? That's what I wanted to know.
I asked Ruben, if you know Devin Allen was welcome
(15:03):
to Philly with open arms by those fans. Never happened before?
He said, not quite. Um, you know, the Eagles have
a wide receiver at camp who is turning a lot
of heads. Britain Covey from Utah really interesting story, and
Ruben told me that his star is potentially starting to
(15:23):
shine a little bit brighter than Devin Allen is getting
a little bit more attention. I will say that in
the preseason game against the Jets, Brittain Covey reportedly tore
some ligaments in his hand. He may or may not
be out for some time because of that. Could this
be a chance for Devin Allen's star to rise? The
answer to that right now is we'll see. Maybe we
(15:47):
don't know. But for me as a track fan, sure
he may not be the talk of the town in Philly,
but I'm excited to watch him play. I want to see,
you know, how this translates over to the NFL, and
I'm going to definitely keep watching Alright, just this was great.
I am rooting for Devon Allen. I hope it works
out for him in a way that it didn't work
out for him at the World Championships. Excellent reporting by you.
Thanks for this, Yeah, thanks for having me on special
(16:13):
Thanks to Ruben Frank and Dave zan Garrow from NBC
Sports Philly for passing along Devon Allen's interview audio from
Eagles training camp. Thanks for listening, and a reminder to
please rate and review the show that helps people find us.
Sports Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and
I Heeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
(16:36):
you get your favorite shows. This episode of Sports Illustrated
Weekly was produced by Jordan Rizzieri, Jessica Armoski, and Isaac Lee,
who was also our sound engineer. Our senior producers are
Dan Bloom and Harry sward Out. Our executive producers are
Scott Rody and me John Gonzalez. Our theme song is
by Nolan Schneider and if you've stuck around this long,
(16:57):
we leave you with this. Yeah. Milrose when it was
at the Garden was the greatest. When I started going
to mill Rose, I mean everybody guys were smoking, like
this cloud of cigarettes smoke, and like you know, Rick
Walhooter's out there running like three fifty seven. It was unbelievable.
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